HYPOXIA

On Thursday, December 10, 2020 at 4:23:10 PM UTC-8, Waveguru wrote:
This is in response to the paraglider missing thread. Many pilots all over the world underestimate the effects of hypoxia and think that they are the exception to the rules. This ferry pilot certainly did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt2T...1bj9GlVqnzogHl

You really have no idea how effected you are. That is one of the reasons it is so dangerous.

Boggs

I have been through the altitude chamber a half dozen times, but I didn’t know my symptoms of long term oxygen deprivation until I got hypoxic on a long flight out in the same area the paraglider went down. I was on a 1000K flight and had turned Seregoda mine in the Owens Valley and was near my second turnpoint of Eureka, Nv. I was thermalling near18000 feet when suddenly, I was unable to maintain pitch control !!! Kinda like a PIO ....I was pulling when I should be pushing!
I had been experiencing a mild headache a mild stomachache for hours.........turned the oxygen knob up until the little ball was just dancing off the top of the flow meter and I was instantly able to regain pitch control. Ah ha moment, for me...........headache and stomachache are my hypoxia indicators!
On the ground, I found one of the little bladders in my cannula was ruptured and I had only been getting half the oxygen I needed.
My wife is on occasional oxygen now days after she lost one lobe in her left lung to cancer ..........her long term hypoxia symptoms are the same as mine........headache and stomachache!
JJ